Invention, intellectual property, and income¶

Step 1: searching through the web¶

My project consists in a modular platform for the characterization of soft robots. A Complete description of the project can be found on this page.

I found my main inspiration on the soft robotics toolkit, a resource sharing platform concerning soft robotics.

Searching a little bit to find ideas, I identified several interesting idea:

• The integration in the soft robotics toolkit resources would be an enormous achievement by itself. This is as example possible via the yearly competitions organized by the platform. Here is an interesting publication about that.
• The work could also be shared via scientific publication, based on the results that could be generated using my final project.
• Finally, I also found an example of commercial project very similar to mine, that could also serve as inspiration. Indeed, the control board detailed in the soft robotics toolkit can be bought in kit online here!!

Step 2: proposing a plan for dissemination¶

To propose a plan for dissemination, I have to rethink first what is the added value of my project, and what I can valorise. As I found, the hardware of the pressure control board (the main part of my project) by itself is not that innovative, since it is already well documented and even sold in kit. However, I remade all the board from scratch, with different components, (and even one third less expensive). This gave me an experience and possibilities to adapt, modify, and improve my project! More, apart from the pressure control, my project includes a an interface, a structure, and a tracking system for characterization… These are small examples of modules that are the real added value of my project!

First thing first - finishing and using my project… and use it!¶

To disseminate my project, the first step will be to finish it (of course) and to use it in my lab. This will allow me to identify its potential and critical points for scientific work. Based on this experience and the knowledges gathered during the project development, it will allow me to define new and/or improved modules to add to make simple and rigorous characterization of soft robots.

Then - refine the different modules and share them¶

Once the new modules will be clearly identified and developed (some are already, as the tracking system and the demonstrators developed in week 10 !), it will be time to share them! Again I find the soft robotics toolkit an excellent initiative, and I see it as the best way to share this kind of work, at the same time for scientific community and for educational purpose. Since a control board is already documented on the platform, the added modules and their integration with the control board would be the resources shared.

Finally - Propose and valorise resources¶

Finally, as paradoxrobotics did based on the control board, further resources, as typically a kit, could be proposed for everyone. It would allow a further way to disseminate soft robotics and my project!

Step 3: Some notes about licensing¶

This week, I also read about licensing, and more specifically the Creative Commen License, that is typically used when we want our work to be open-source and shared! Here is a nice video explaining the basics of it.

To summarize the different types of licenses, this nice image can be found on the Wikipedia CC page image, itself under creative commons license! The left side indicates the use-cases allowed, and the right side the license components. The dark green area indicates Free Cultural Works compatible licenses, the two green areas compatibility with the Remix culture.

By Shaddim; original CC license symbols by Creative Commons - https://creativecommons.org/about/downloads/https://creativecommons.org/policies/Original CC license icons licensed under CC BY 4.0, CC BY 4.0, Link

To go a little bit further and choose a license for my fab academy work I went on this page. Since I want basically my work to be shared and reused, but I don’t want to allow commercial use of this work, here is the chosen license:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Step 4: Making video and slide of my final project¶

The slide and video can be found on this page